Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities - Lexington, Mississippi

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Lexington, Mississippi, a town of only a few thousand people, was once a bustling center for Jewish merchants. Lexington is the smallest place in Mississippi where a Jewish community has survived for a considerable period. This county seat of Holmes County is located in the Mississippi Delta region. In its earliest days, it was established as a trading post, and by 1830 it had grown to a small village. Named after Lexington Massachusetts, where the first shot was fired in the American Revolution, the town was incorporated in 1836. The town built itself on the cotton economy, a system that produced local careers not only in farming but also in shop keeping. Throughout much of Lexington's history, Jewish immigrants brought their skills and experience from Europe to an area flush with economic opportunity. Jewish members of this cotton center opened retail stores ranging from groceries to dry goods and clothing, such as Cohen’s Department Store, a business still in existence today.

Jacob Sontheimer: The first Jewish settler came to the area as early as the late 1830s. Jacob Sontheimer of Germany came to Holmes County, and like many Jews in the South, he earned his living as a peddler selling his wares across the county. One of his customers, Mr. Johnson, came to enjoy Sontheimer's visits, and offered him a position as caretaker for the plantation owner named Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson promised Sontheimer his estate once he died. When Johnson passed away, Sontheimer received Johnson’s land but not his slaves, after a court awarded them to Johnson’s family members who objected to the will. Jacob sold all but 1200 of the 4000 acres he was given and used the remaining land for farming. He named the 1200-acre plantation “Sontheimer’s Place” a name that stuck even after the family sold the property. With the money from his real estate sales, Sontheimer opened a general merchandise business in the 1840s in a brick building on the courthouse square. The store played a major role in establishing commerce in Lexington. Like many Jewish stores, the store sold a variety of items including food, clothing, farm equipment and housewares. While Jacob and his wife Mary were quite successful, the Civil War decimated the Sontheimer ventures and Sontheimer, like many men in his generation, failed to adapt to the post-war climate. Sontheimer’s ancestors remained in Lexington. In fact, his great-great grandson, Robert Lewis Berman, wrote a book about the Lexington Jewish community. Sontheimer had six daughters, five of whom remained in town. Two became prominent local merchants. In 1883, Rosa Sontheimer and Bettie Sontheimer Fisher started a large and substantial wholesale and retail mercantile business called R & B Sontheimer Company, which proved to be quite successful in the post-Reconstruction economy. At its peak, the store took in a volume of $300,000 annually. The sisters, both of whom studied in New York, were adept businesswomen. One day, the pair noticed a saddle was missing from their inventory but had no record for the sale. Bettie decided to bill all the customers for the saddle. When each customer came in to contest the purchase, they apologized for the mistake. When a person who bought it came in and paid, the sisters’ problem was solved. Simon Fisher, Bettie's husband, was content to let Bettie run the store and let her be the "front man." He sat on a chair in front of the store during business hours and greet customers, just as Wal- Mart greeters do today. The business grew to become one of the largest in Mississippi; Rosa became Mississippi’s first individual female millionaire. Rosa eventually married Isidore Hyman, a Jewish gentleman from Greenwood. Hyman joined their business, and the family’s success in the crop-lien system led Isadore and Rosa to amass nearly 4,000 acres of land. Isidore never forgot about those in need in the Lexington area. Through his wealth, he ran a small private orphanage on his land in order to take care of sharecroppers’ children without homes.

Late nineteenth century immigrants: By the late 1870s, twenty-four Jewish residents resided in Lexington. Like the Sontheimers, most of these immigrants were of German descent. By the 1890s, an influx of migrants was beginning to arrive in the Holmes County area, coming not only from Germany but also from Poland, Russia, and other parts of the United States. By 1900, the Jewish population of Lexington reached fifty people. Isaac Flower, a tailor from Poland, and his wife, Esther, started a clothing business in 1881. Isaac had been a tailor in Poland and used his skills to alter misfit suits. He was so adept at his craft that he could transform a size 40 suit into a perfect 36. His family soon followed him to Lexington. His nephew, Abram, who had trained to be a baker in Poland, opened a small bakery next to the Lexington opera house. When Abram came through immigration, he used his adopted name of Flower, but the authorities recorded it as Flowers. People soon flocked to the Abram’s bakery and bought his specialty, big loaves of German rye. Abram’s brother, Sam, soon joined him and also took on the name Flowers as well. They eventually opened a clothing store known as Flowers’ Brothers Department Store. Like many Jewish merchants across the South, Lexington’s Jewish merchants sold a lot of their goods to African Americans working as share croppers. In oral histories, longtime African-American residents of Lexington praised the Jewish merchants for treating them respectfully. Other early merchants included Henry Aaron Rosenthal, who founded Rosenthal Brothers firm in Lexington, a real estate rental firm. Rosenthal also operated a variety store. Sol and Agathyne Applebaum had two businesses in Lexington, a laundry and a tailoring business. Customers from all over the Delta came to have their clothing tailored. In fact, when they went to the train station, instead of asking for a ticket to Lexington, people often asked for a ticket to Applebaums tailor shop.

The Lewis family:Sam Herrman and Morris Lewis took Lexington’s grocery businesses to a new level. Herrman, born in Davisborough, Georgia, was the son of Abraham Herrman and Lexington native, Celia Sontheimer. Abraham Herrman arrived from Bavaria and was looking for opportunities for the entire family. As a result, the Herrmans moved away from Georgia and went to Lexington. Sam Herrman married Flora Levy of Vicksburg in 1898. Morris Lewis emigrated from Poland to New York at age 13 accompanied only by his younger brother Myer, who was ten. He learned English as a shoe-shine boy and worked as an office boy for a warehouse establishment. In 1890, he joined some of his relatives in Sidon, a small town south of Greenwood, where Lewis could earn $25 per month as a store clerk. He managed to save enough money to start his own business. Morris Lewis also found a bride in the area, Miss Julia Sontheimer, granddaughter of Jacob Sontheimer; the couple married in 1900 in Lexington’s First Methodist Church since there was not yet a synagogue in Lexington. After marrying Julia Sontheimer, Morris Lewis came to Lexington and made a connection with his distant relative, Sam Herrman. By the turn of the century, Herrman and Lewis started a grocery business together called the Lewis-Herrman Company. During the early years, Morris held the franchise rights to both Coca-Cola and a private-label soft drink. When Coca-Cola pressured him to drop the competing brand, he dropped the Coke brand, forfeiting millions in lost sales and profits. Despite this initial blunder, the two gentlemen were very successful, and the grocery business eventually merged with other local grocers including the Barrett’s in 1915 and the Gwin’s in 1916. In 1922, Morris Lewis created the wholesale Lewis Grocer Company, which supplied grocery stores around the region. Lewis Grocer Company became the precursor for Sunflower Food Stores, an independent grocery chain that still spans across the state of Mississippi. In addition, the Lewis family also owned a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Lexington. The Lewis family also opened Foodway Grocery and several Mr. Quik Convenience stores. The Lewis Grocery Company was a catalyst for the Lexington Jewish community as well. Many Jewish families moved to the small town of Lexington to work for the business.The Lewis and Herrman families made multiple contributions to the community as well. Together, they bought a cotton press, an ice factory, a cotton oil mill, a waterworks system, and a sewage system for the Lexington community. Morris Lewis Sr. was known as the most active, progressive, and successful man in Mississippi. He helped found the Lexington Rotary Club and the Lexington Country Club, and served as the first chairman of the board of the hospital in Holmes County. He also organized the first electric light company as well as Merchants & Farmers Trust Company of Holmes County. Created in 1905, the trust company was such a priority for Morris Lewis Sr. that he mortgaged everything, including his grocery store, to guarantee collateral for the bank. When the bank, along with many others, suffered during the Great Depression, he reorganized the bank as the Holmes County Bank & Trust Company and helped many businesses in financial trouble by not foreclosing on them. Lewis believed in being faithful to his customers and justified his actions to his family by arguing that he could not be in business without his neighboring customer farmers. He told his children, “If things do not work out for the best, I may not have much in material wealth to leave you when I die; but I promise I will leave you the greatest wealth one can own – and that is a good name.” In 1937, Morris and Julia, along with Julia's aunt and brother, were struck by an intoxicated driver. Morris was badly injured and was not expected to live, but he survived and it was Julia who died a few days later. After her death, he never remarried. Morris Lewis Jr. continued to grow the business. After the Lewis Grocer Company merged with SuperValu, Inc., he served as chairman of the board and moved to company headquarters in Minneapolis. Because of his love for Mississippi, Lewis commuted from Minneapolis to his hometown in Indianola each week via his private jet. His wife, Freda, always accompanied him. Lewis, Jr. was a member of the Lexington high school band and member of the football team, and attended Wharton business school. After returning home to Mississippi, he served as president of the National Wholesale Grocers Association, chairman of the state Delta Council and the Mississippi Economic Council. In 1973, he was awarded the Herbert Hoover award by the Hoover Association in recognition of his achievement in the area of food distribution.

Forming a Jewish congregation: By 1905, Lexington Jews had formed a congregation, Temple Beth El. Sam Herrman and Morris Lewis donated the land for the synagogue and the congregation's cemetery. After the congregation's dedication, the Lexington Jewish community grew and thrived. Nearly sixty Jews lived in the Lexington area in 1908. However, the Jewish community of Lexington was not without hardship. In 1919, Jewish grocery store owner Harry Goldberg was shot and killed by another Jewish resident, Paul Stein, over canned goods Stein purchased at Goldberg’s store. The two men got into a heated argument and Goldberg fired the first shot. Stein was acquitted of murder charges.

The growth of the Lexington Jewish community:The Jewish community continued to grow well into the 1930s, reaching its peak at 89 residents in the late 1930s. During this period, Jews were not just merchants, but also food brokers, bankers, wholesale grocers, retail grocers, tailors, salesmen, and farmers. There was also a plantation owner, a lawyer, insurance agent, cattle broker, scrap metal dealer and a butcher.

Joe Berman: Joe Berman moved to Lexington after a distinguished career as an attorney, politician, food broker, army colonel, and author in Atlanta. For his meritorious service as a full colonel during World War II, he received the Bronze Star and the Oak Leaf cluster. Early in his legal career in Atlanta, his college roommate and fraternity brother, LeRoy Paris, invited Joe to his wedding in Lexington, where Joe met and eventually wed Fay Emily Lewis. Following lynching of Leo Frank, Jews in Atlanta were wary of running for political office, but not Berman. Fourteen years after the incident, against the advice of many and despite threats from the Ku Klux Klan, he ran for city council. The Klan used illegal tactics to defeat him in his first election, but Berman remained determined and Berman won the next three elections, using his own clever and legal campaign strategies. It helped that he had a great deal of support from the community. Joe was devoted to his wife Fay, who left Lexington as a teenager to attend the Washington Seminary, a girl’s school in Washington D.C. She returned to Lexington with her husband to be with her father after her mother’s death. A socialite, an expert bridge player, and a gourmet cook, she spent many hours doing charitable work in the Lexington community, just as her mother, Julia Lewis had done. Her daughter, Joan, married a local Methodist, Dudley Burwell, who converted to Judaism at the age of 70 after regularly attending services at Beth El. Their two sons, both physicians, remained on the Mississippi coast to render medical attention following Hurricane Katrina.

World War II: World War II caused a lot of Jews to leave Lexington. Of the sixteen Jewish men who left the city to serve in the armed forces during World War II, only two returned in 1945. One man was killed in the war and the rest settled elsewhere. Gus Herman, who did return to Lexington, was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Other Jews began to leave because the Delta’s economy of started to shift. Mechanical cotton pickers and tractors replaced a large number of farm workers, and this loss of population had a devastating effect on Jewish merchants, who depended upon many in the farming community for business. What is more, Lexington farmers discouraged factories from locating there to preclude competition in the marketplace for the labor force that remained. With the cotton economy struggling, Jewish businesses closed, causing many to leave for areas of greater opportunity. Today only one Jewish department store remains, Cohen’s.

Community relations: Despite the Jewish community’s decrease in numbers, Lexington Jewish businesses were very active up until the 1960s. Eight Jewish-owned businesses — five of them retail stores — were open on or near the town square. Community members like Henry Paris were thoroughly involved in their community. He and Robert Lewis Berman formed a swing band, the Dixiekats, and they played throughout the Delta. While attending Ole Miss, Paris was elected to the coveted position of “Colonel Rebel,” beating out a football player for the first time in the history of the school. He was also president of Phi Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity and head cheerleader for the Rebels. He and his wife Rose were married in their sorority house. He helped to establish an interfaith chapel on the campus of Ole Miss.In Lexington, Paris organized an annual charitable Delta tennis tournament, with the proceeds going to cancer research. Many other Lexington Jews had a significant impact on the Delta. For instance, Herman Flowers, who ran his parents’ clothing business, was elected President of the Tulane student body and inducted into the exclusive ODK leadership fraternity. After he returned to Lexington to run his parents’ store. A former athlete, he promoted local players from Holmes and neighboring counties to college coaches. Johnny Vaught, the Ole Miss Football coach, bought gifts for his staff from Herman’s store as a sign of appreciation.

The Civil Rights Movement:As in every town in the Delta, racial tensions in Lexington came to a head during the Civil Rights movement. Southern Jews were in a difficult position. To challenge white supremacy was to lose acceptance, which had serious social and economic consequences. In Lexington, fallout from the Civil Rights movement peaked in the 1960s. In 1964, Lexington was one of the Mississippi communities in which Freedom Summer volunteers registered African Americans to vote. There was no Ku Klux Klan activity in Lexington, and the Jewish community remained neutral, a position which some residents claim actually helped to promote calmness during that difficult period. Compared to a lot of towns in the Delta, Lexington was spared from the worst of the violence and remained relatively peaceful. Those Jewish voices that did challenge the system of Jim Crow exhibited tremendous courage. For example, one leading Jewish merchant stood up for a black teacher to have his job restored. Despite a relatively peaceful transition into integrated schools, racial tension plagued the town for quite some time. Economic boycotts by local African Americans in 1967, 1971 and 1978 targeted Lexington merchants, including Jews. Leroy Paris, a leading member of the Jewish community served on the first bi-racial committee in 1972 to work out compromise. During the 1978 boycott, Robert Smith, president of the NAACP and a retired school teacher, took the side of the white merchants. After receiving threats from the African American community, Phil Cohen, Pastor James Rodgers, and other town members formed another coalition in 1978. During the boycott, Phil and James Rodgers held a prayer session on the south side of the town square. Both sides came and the boycotts ended for good. Rodgers was close friends with Jewish merchant Herbert Hyman. They initially bonded over the fact that James’s uncle, Will Haynes, a plumber, helped Hyman, learn how to farm when he first arrived in town. Because of this act of kindness, Herman tried to maintain positive relations between the African American and white communities. For instance, he would often post bond for imprisoned African Americans when no other white person would.

Recent history: Today, only a few Jewish families remain in Lexington. Though the community is on the verge of fading out, Lexington has been a great small town Jewish success story. Lexington Jews have always been closely integrated into the social and economic life of the town. In fact, two of Lexington’s largest churches display a Star of David at their entrance. Despite their small numbers, this close-knit community managed to keep Jewish life alive in Holmes County for almost two centuries.